


As Above, So Below

by aelins



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bibilical horror, Heavy Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, OK THERE'S A LOT OF ANGST DO YOU READ ME?, Original Locations, Reincarnation, Worldbuilding, aka a thousand eyed angel who gets off on tormenting the gays, don't worry he don't last long lmfao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:54:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelins/pseuds/aelins
Summary: In every lifetime Gabriel dies, and this one will be different. He is immortal for the first time and when he is reconnected with his greatest love, he knows he has to find a way to stay in Matthew's life. As he looks out at his future, he knows he will bend heaven and raise hell to stay by the fallen angel, Matthew's side.“What good is love? Will love make my father less of a tyrant? Will love feed my poorest citizens? Will love get the council off my back? The new king of the Underworld is meeting us today,” His tone is belligerent and wild, his eyes bright with anger, “I wonder what good love did him... rumor has it that his own father cast him out of heaven—entirely. Not sent to the Realm of Gold, but straight to hell. I wonder what love did for him?” Gabriel shakes his head and turns around to face Tati, pointing a finger at her, the accusation clear in his voice. “Love ruins and love is the ruination of me and my people. We cannot afford to be soft, not now, not when the Heavens are merely our oppressors. There is no softness left in me to give to a lover.”
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2





	As Above, So Below

**Author's Note:**

> For Owen, who is as sweet as Gabriel, and has stuck by my side as long as Matthew has stuck with Gabriel.

Gabriel stood on the highest peak, of the tallest tower. He frequently enjoyed climbing the roofs and looking down at Earth. He breathed the fresh air, thick with the scent of rain—though the heavens had not opened up just yet. The wind rippled his shoulder-length, golden hair, and the first of the spring raindrops began to fall to the streets of the Realm of Gold.

It was the first time since the harsh winter that Gabriel had seen the rain.

Of course, the Realm of Gold was only named thus because of the creatures it housed. It was somewhere between the moon and Earth, though no one knew where it was _exactly._

He thinks he really needs to get the hell down from here before not even the unnatural power living in his veins can spare him from the torrential downpour they’re due for today.

One might think this place was a haven or even heaven.

It was far from that.

It was a gilded cage, a place ripe for chaos.

Being the son of an Arcangel meant he had big shoes to fill, shoes he wasn’t entirely interested in putting on in the first place. It was difficult to say when the trouble had begun, only that it hadn’t ended until the damage was done.

Gabriel sighed, inhaling the ozone tang of the rain.

He leaps from the tower, embracing freefall, and if this was anyone else, anyone but the son of the angel, Gabriel, there might be cause for concern. Angels were not what they were made out to be on Earth, little dolls with harps and flutes. Their power was heavenly fire, lightning, and thunder. The angels held power that was coveted by all other creatures of this and all other worlds.

Vertigo sets in at one hundred feet of free fall, but his half-human physiology is easily corralled into behaving more like his father’s than his mothers.

He lands in a crouch, some girls on the street grin sexily at him, and he stands, rocks back on his heel slightly, his bad knee whispering angry moanings—then faces the day.

*~*~*

There is a market, which legends agree is the most coveted of all, the place where the Realm of Gold’s wealth is spent in the highest quantity. Vendors from all over the sliver of divinely engineered planet, come to compete and hope and either lose their fortunes or win them.

There is everything, everything, and yet—as Gabriel chomps on honey and cinnamon coated almonds—a weakness of his—there is nothing for those that have less.

It is true that Hariford has much of what one might deem a _utopia_. But aside from its lush views, the inherent wealth and _privilege_ of the people living here stinks of have and have not's. The wanting and the wanted.

It’s a shame because he loves this city.

His father would murder him in his bed _literally_ if he deigned to change a thing though. He supposes that’s why he’s dreading the council meeting today.

It seemed so unnecessary that he attend them, his father controlled the city efficiently, sending angry whispers in the form of letters from heaven.

When the first letter had come, he’d _burned it_. Which of course had his father descending from heaven to _scream_ at him.

Gabriel hated it when people screamed, it was too similar to the sounds his mother had made when his father had realized he didn’t love her—the angel Gabriel had burned his lover in heavenly fire.

Gabriel was merely wandering the different sections of the markets, the tea stalls, getting a steaming cup of a blackberry tea that was said to be heavenly and _out of this world_. He had bought the tea just because of the nerve of the half-demon, half-witch selling them. Not many dared to utter words like _heavenly_ so lightly and putting it on a sign it bright red letters was sure to draw attention. Gabriel walked away with his _very_ expensive cup of tea, the cool breeze off the Banecala River make steam pipe from the cup. He grinned up at the sky and winked, there was a rumble, and Gabriel knew his father had seen him. A low laugh escaped his lips.

On the whole, it was a very pleasant morning. The school children laughed and played, business was good, and he’d disgruntled his father.

Yes, very productive.

An hour passes, and the tea is gone, and the honey and cinnamon almonds are long gone, but he needs to see a witch about a spell.

This was going to be a difficult day.

*~*~*

Tatiana was a fearsome witch. She was tall, although not willowy, she had a figure carved with a generous hand, her breasts and hips full. Her mouth was a perfect cupid’s bow, and her hair a deep and rich brown, a few shades darker than her skin. She was from the south, a place where the sun seemed to never stop beating down on the people there. Gabriel had been to the south of the crescent of the Realm of Gold and had loved every moment.

Tati, as she liked to be called, was currently looking over some papers, she snatched them up hastily as she realized who was in her small workshop.

“Hello, Prince.” She crooned.

Gabriel stuck his hands in his pockets, “Good morning, queen of the underworld,” She scowls at him, her face crumpling, “Oh c’mon that’s your title now isn’t it?”

Tati sticks her nose in the air, “Watch yourself, not even my best friend can treat me thus.”

Gabriel laughs, a deep, rich sound, he presses a hand to his heart, “You wound me.”

Tati’s hips sway as she walks into the back room with her work. Gabriel’s eyes attempt to look around her workspace, utterly uninterested in the way her hips swish.

“So what are you here for? Come to be a thorn in my side again?” Tati says, her voice lilting with a southern accent.

“Of course,” Gabriel replies, smiling at nothing. He and Tati went back a long way. She’d even met his father, and the Angel Gabriel’s reaction that _Tati_ was his son’s best friend had been awful. Gabriel tries not to think of his father’s reaction to anyone other than the eldest of his angelic brethren.

Tati sticks her head out of her back workroom, “Don’t try to fool me,” she says, she sniffs irritably, “You had Bastian’s almonds and tea from that hellion without me.”

Of all the things Tati could be mad about—his transgressions with certain male and female half angels—this was the thing she chose to chew him out for.

She pipes up, “And don’t think I didn’t see you with that pretty demon boy last night.”

Gabriel pales.

Tati comes out of the workroom, and tosses him a foil packet.

“For the next time, you fuck him.”

Gabriel protests, “C’mon Tati, everyone hates these things.”

She shrugs, although it is with an air of supreme smugness.

“When you go blind and mad from syphilis, _do not_ come crying to me. I’m not going to magick you back to sanity. I will laugh and watch as you go all squirrelly.”

Gabriel frowns, “Safe sex is good sex?”

Tati nods, and shuffles her papers around, “I’m exceedingly tired of seeing you flounce around with every boy—or girl—who gives you bedroom eyes.”

He gives his friend a guilty little shrug, “I don’t flounce and Damon is—cute?”

Tati snorts, “Honey, we’re _all_ immortal, trapped in bodies that do not belie the ruthlessness of our natures, if you took everyone at face value in life, you’d be dead before you hit thirty.”

Gabriel’s shoulders ripple with male power, “Leave it, Tati.”

She stomps her foot, “You need to settle down, find someone you care about—someone you want to spend eternity with. _Someone you love_.”

Gabriel makes a gagging noise, and turns halfway away from her, “What good is love? Will love make my fatherless of a tyrant? Will love feed my poorest citizens? Will love get the council off my back? The new king of the Underworld is meeting us today,” His tone is belligerent and wild, his eyes bright with anger, “I wonder what good love did him... rumor has it that his own father cast him out of heaven—entirely. Not sent to the Realm of Gold, but straight to hell. I wonder what love did for him?” Gabriel shakes his head and turns around to face Tati, pointing a finger at her, the accusation clear in his voice. “Love ruins and love is the ruination of me and my people. We cannot afford to be soft, not now, not when the Heavens are merely our oppressors. There is no softness left in me to give to a lover.”

Tati looks at him sadly and hugs him. “I love you like a brother.” She says, hugging him to her. “I love you so much, and if it breaks you, you must understand that love will give you _all that you desire_.” She lets him go and he feels anger well up in his chest.

There was nothing left for him to give.

*~*~*

The meeting with the council was a disaster. The meeting is just about concluded—or at least Gabriel is about to tell them all to _go the fuck home_ when the doors to the council chamber burst open.

A small, fae woman was bounding after a man so beautiful Gabriel literally feels his heart give a painful _thud_. He was enormously tall, with shoulder-length hair like Gabriel’s only this man’s was so deep brown it was nearly black. He had soulful, nearly tortured looking eyes that seemed to peer into Gabriel’s very soul. His mouth had soft, plush lips that were currently curled into a snarl. His cheekbones seemed sharp enough to cut glass. _Magnificent_ was all Gabriel could think.

“Gentlemen you are _dismissed_.” He snaps at the council members, who are each appointed by his father and his best friend—the angel Michael. Each of the eight council members were more awful than the next. It would’ve never occurred to Gabriel that he would have to tell a council member that caring for their people was—in fact—mandatory. It was not generosity, it was merely the least of what they could do.

The man taking great, long strides toward Gabriel looked angry, _very angry._ And all Gabriel could think was that this was the most beautiful man he’d ever laid eyes on.

The man, whom he now recognized as the son of the angel Michael—was giving him a look that made him wilt slightly.

“What the _fuck_ is going on in this hellhole?” Matthew shouted. Unlike the angel Gabriel, the angel Michael had named his full-blooded son, not after himself—but after his lover’s brother, whom he’d cared for much deeper than the woman he’d created Matthew with.

“Can you please explain to me why the Underworld is teeming with new dead? They’re causing a huge problem.”

Gabriel’s eyes are dilated, and Matthew snaps, “I know I’m pretty, and very distracting, princeling, but who is killing people in such great numbers?”

“I am,” answered a shadowy voice.


End file.
